Sharing a public computer

In this course:

On a public computer that may be shared with a hundred people, it doesn’t make sense to create individual Windows user accounts. In this case, everyone shares one user account. If you're the computer owner, you can restrict permissions on the account so users can access their email but can't make changes to the computer itself, like add or remove programs. The easiest and most secure way to access email on a public computer is through a web browser.

Sharing a public computer

The easiest and most secure way to access email on a public computer is through a web browser. To do that, you need three pieces of information: your user name, password, and the login URL for your email. You can get this address from your email provider. For example, the login address for a Microsoft email account is live.com or outlook.com. Type your email address and password. Then, click Sign In.

When you're finished, go to Internet options in the browser and delete history, temporary Internet files, and passwords.

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On a public computer that may be shared by a hundred people, it doesn't make sense to create individual Windows user accounts.

In this case, everyone shares one user account.

If you're the computer owner, you can restrict permissions on the account, so users can access their email but cannot make changes to the computer itself, like add or remove programs.

The easiest and most secure way to access email on a public computer is through a web browser.

To do that, you need three pieces of information: your user name, password, and the login URL for your email.

You can get this address from your email provider.

For example, the login address for a Microsoft email account is live.com or outlook.com.

Type your email address and password. Then, click Sign In.

After signing in to a Microsoft account, you not only have access to your email in the browser, you can open your contacts, calendar and OneDrive.

You could for example receive a document attachment in email, open it with a Microsoft Web App and then edit the document, which saves the file to your OneDrive – all in the browser without using any other programs on the public computer.

With online providers like Microsoft Microsoft 365, you can access your business email, contacts and calendar, as well as your team SharePoint site.

When you're finished, you'll want to make sure the person after you can't access your email account.

Simply signing out or closing your browser is not always enough.

For example, someone could reopen the browser and look through your history or simply open the list of recent URLs to see where you've been. And in this case, see your email address.

To make sure you don't leave anything behind, go to Internet options in the browser and delete history, temporary Internet files, and passwords.

Deleting browser history not only protects your email and identity, it helps keep the computer tidy for the other people who need to use it.

So, with Windows user accounts and the Outlook Web App you can protect your email on most computers.

Up next, we'll look at two additional ways to help protect your email.